Just past sundown, the sky turns colorful over Kanopolis Reservoir west of Salina.
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Mine tailings, the byproduct of a mine processing plant, glisten in the sun near Hayden, Arizona, an area where copper and other minerals are mined. The enormous tailing piles are made up of ground rock and process effluents left after the minerals are extracted.
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Elk greet the first light of morning at the Maxwell Wildlife Refuge in McPherson County. The refuge, a prairie of mixed grasses in the Smoky Hill region of central Kansas, is home to about 75 elk.
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Stone masons finish the Walking Wall at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art at Kansas City. The wall, created by Scottish artist Andy Goldsworthy, "walked" to its permanent destination, beginning east of the museum. Over a nine-month period, British stone masons continually moved limestone blocks from the wall's tail to its head, walking it across the museum grounds, down a flight of stairs, and into the Bloch Building, which houses the museum's contemporary art. The drystone wall is made of limestone from the Flint Hills of Kansas.
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Andy Goldsworthy, a Scottish artist, poses on part of the Walking Wall he created at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. The wall extends across the grounds of the museum and into the Bloch Building, which houses contemporary art. The drystone wall is made of limestone from the Kansas Flint Hills.
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A late fall storm produced little moisture but it did drop a rainbow among the wind turbines in southern Lincoln County, Kansas.
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Clouds, pushed by strong south winds, churn at sundown over a wind farm in Lincoln County.
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Big Boy 4014, a steam locomotive owned and restored by the Union Pacific Railroad, races past an old grain elevator at Wilson, Kansas. The train's November 2019 tour of the Southwest was a public event to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the transcontinental railroad, The journey attracted considerable attention all along the route, and many train buffs from throughout the country followed in their cars, leading often to traffic jams in small communities. Big Boy 4014 was retired from service in 1961, after pulling cars more than 1 million miles. It was reacquired by Union Pacific in 2013, restored, and returned to special duty, such as pulling excursion trains.
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Sunflowers, their heads bowed and their striking summer color long gone, dry in the autumn sun. This field is in northern Lincoln County.
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The last of the day's sunlight illuminate borh the sand dunes and low clouds at Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado.
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Drivers of 14 vintage Rolls-Royce and Bentley motor cars, hailing from across the country, climbed to the continental divide in Colorado for a September rendezvous at Molas Divide (elevation: 10,910 feet). Their mission: group photographs — one of the cars, another of the owners. One driver said he found the slow, twisty, steep route up the Million Dollar Highway to Ouray to be a challenge for his Rolls, but that didn't dampen his enthusiasm. For the photograph, some in the group arrived early at the Molas Divide overlook to keep a wide area of the small parking lot free of more common cars. Perhaps because of the novelty of the British cars, which attracted at least as much attention as the mountain views, other travelers were quite accommodating.
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The skeletons of red cedar trees killed by a 2016 wildfire litter a Gyp Hills pasture in Barber County. The death of the trees is beneficial. Red cedars are highly invasive interlopers, claiming pasture space and soil moisture.
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A sunflower stands alone on a red shale butte in the Gyp Hills southwest of Medicine Lodge.
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Working under cloudy skies, Ottawa County farmer Eric Brown harvests a field of wheat east of Delphos, Kansas. His aim is to market two crops — the wheat and also the straw, which he will bale and sell to be made into cattle feed.
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A red fox kit, one of three in the litter, prowls an east Salina neighborhood. Foxes are known for their intelligence, cunning and adaptability, which allows them to thrive in widely diversified habitats.
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Deep ravines accented by sharp scars are prominent features of the Arikeree Breaks north of St. Francis, Kansas. The breaks were created millions of years ago by wind erosion. Where even thin soil is available, vegetation covers.
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Flooding of the Cottonwood River has pushed water into the lower level of the Drinkwater and Schriver Flour Mill at Cedar Point, Kansas. The mill, unused since the 1960s. is listed on the National Record of Historic Places and is owned by a nonprofit corporation that is raising money to fund restoration. Despite the prominent cracks in the walls, the mill is believed to be sound. It sits on bedrock and the lower-level walls are 42 inches thick. The mill was built as a sawmill in 1867 when a log dam was built across the river; its purpose soon after was turned to grain milling, and the dam was replaced with one of stone.
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A field of ripening wheat sports a scalloped edge in Logan County, south of Oakley. Many rural roads in far western Kansas lack roadside ditches, giving farmers the opportunity to maximize crop production by pulling their planting equipment around power poles and extending their fields to the road's edge. In this scene, a post-sunset storm is brewing in the west.
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Roofers Andy Littrel and Don Lopez ride a lift down from the high steeple at St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Liebenthal, where they are replacing the steeple's copper skin. It's a tall order. The narrow steeple is about 60 feet, and the top of it is about 168 feet above the ground. Leaks necessitated the repairs. The work is being done by Roofmasters of nearby Hays, which has considerable experience in answering calls for steeple repairs.
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A Horned Lark chrips from a guidepost that marks the highest elevation in Kansas. The top of Mount Sunflower (not a mountain at all; barely a hill, in fact) is at 4,039 feet above sea level. The site, protected by a woven wire fence held with tree stump posts, includes metal-crafted signs and sunflowers as well as limestone markers. Mount Sunflower is near Weskan, in far western Kansas less than a mile from the Colorado border. It's in a desolate area served only by unpaved roads and you might think the number of visitors would be minimal. But no! Eighteen pages were needed in the registration notebook, kept in a mailbox, to log the visitors who signed in in May of 2019.
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Runoff from recent heavy rains in the Flint Hills rush down a creek in northern Butler County. Runoff and flooding are common in the Kansas Flint Hills, where the thin soil sits atop rock, giving water little chance to percolate.
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A jumble of grain storage structures stands at the edge of the Union Pacific Railroad tracks near downtown Wilson, Kansas. The grain elevator once provided public storage, but no more. It's private.
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Banks of clouds to the north add drama as a light rain falls on the prairie of eastern Ellsworth County.
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A sandstone tower, showing the effects of erosion, juts from a bluff in the Horsethief area of Kanopolis State Park. The tower is among many outcroppings along the Buffalo Track Canyon Nature Trail, which follows Bison Creek in the park.
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A tree stump weathers gracefully next to a small stream in the Flint Hills of Butler County, Kansas. The stump is one of several, all in a neat row, that mark the passing of felled trees.
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Wild mustangs graze on a Butler County pasture in the Kansas Flint Hills. The Federal Bureau of Land Management leases some 60,000 acres in Kansas to provide a free-roaming environment for some 7,000 horses, thereby preserving a symbol of the Old West. The horses are descendants of horses brought to the West by Spanish explorers.
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A giant cottonwood tree, showing damage by beavers, stands tall on the bank of the Smoky Hill River east of Ellsworth, Kansas. The cottonwood, the state tree of Kansas, is often found along streams and creeks as they thirst for water and have high tolerance for occasional flooding.
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Docks and patios are the link between high-dollar homes and the placid waters of Lake Wabaunsee, west of Eskridge, Kansas. The 235-acre lake was built during the Great Depression, providing jobs, and the sale of building lots financed the construction, which was finished in 1939. With the help of heavy rains in 1941, the soring-fed lake was full in 1941. During World War II, barracks were built to house German prisoners of war at the lake.
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Limestone rock, found just below the soil throughout the Kansas Flint Hills, was used as a building material by early settlers in the state. Here, a house made of limestone blocks sits behind a fence made of limestone stones in Wabaunsee County, south of Alma.
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Cattle dart from a semi-trailer into a holding pen that will deliver them to their summer home — a tallgrass pasture in the Flint Hills of Wabaunsee, County, Kansas. On this day, eight truckloads, each holding about 90 head of cattle, were unloaded. The cattle will be divided into 14 pastures south of Alma, where they will graze until fall.
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Sandstone outcroppings are common at Kanopolis State Park, in central Kansas. The rock can be traced back some 80 million years, when what is now Kansas — indeed much of the Great Plains — was covered by a vast, shallow sea. It's iron that gives the rocks their reddish, rusty color.
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An Eastern Meadowlark keeps watch in the grasslands of Ellsworth County. The bird is quite similar in appearance to the Western Meadowlark, which is the state bird of Kansas, and both species are found in central Kansas. It's difficult to distinguish one species from the other — until they sing. Both are melodious, but their tunes are sharply different.
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A setting sun illuminates sandstone rocks on the shore of Kanopolis Reservoir in Ellsworth County. The lake level has been lowered to accommodate construction work near the dam, thus exposing more of the rocks at water's edge.
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Sandhill cranes dance at sunup on a sandbar in the Platte River east of Kearney, Neb., The dancing is part of the mating ritual for the cranes that stop at the Platte to feed and rest during their spring migration north to breeding grounds in Alaska and Canada. The cranes spend about six weeks here, and their population is a half million or more.
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Sandhill cranes fly a colorful, sunset sky as they leave a farm field to return to their roosting place, the Platte River south of Kearney, Neb. Cranes by the thousands spend about six weeks on the Platte to feed and rest during their seasonal migration north to destinations in Canada, Alaska and beyond.
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A sandhill crane glides in for a landing in a Nebraska cornfield to join other cranes, all with their heads down, scavenging for leftover corn. The field is just south of the Platte River, east of Kearney.
The rising sun, obscured by dark clouds at the horizon, gets aggressive in forcing color though an opening at higher elevation. This scene is in a rural area of Barton County northeast of Great Bend.
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A prairie chicken dances, but to no avail, at a lek north of the Cheyenne Bottoms wetlands in Barton County. On this morning the lek attracted just four prairie chickens — two roosters and two hens, and the hens opted for an early exit.
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Steel is the medium of a design concept shared by the Burr Oak city water tower and the nearby grain augering apparatus of the Mid Way Co-op elevator. Burr Oak, with a population of a less than 200, is in northern Kansas, not far from the Nebraska border.
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Venerable, weathered wood barns and grain storage tanks share a farmyard south of Kearney, Neb.
Snow geese take flight from a harvested corn field south of Overton, Neb.
As dawn paints the sky, geese take wing over the Platte River near Kearney, Neb. Heavy rains have pushed the river to flood stage.
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Just east of Phoenix, Usery Mountain is a popular Sonoran Desert hiking spot. It is flanked by the Goldfield Mountains and the Tonto National Forest. The mountain is the centerpiece of the Usery Mountain Regional Park, a 3,648-acre recreational site managed by the Maricopa County Parks Commission.
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Usery Mountain, which reaches an elevation of 2,846 feet, offers views of the broad East Valley that is home to Phoenix, Ariz. The Usery Mountain Regional Park, operated by Maricopa County Parks Commission, is popular with hikers. This scene is along the Wind Cave Trail.
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Canada Geese prepare to take flight from the McPherson State Fishing Lake. The takeoff is complicated by ice that covers much of the central Kansas lake.
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An abandoned farmstead is framed by trees that have lost not only their leaves but some of their branches, The last light of the day is mottled by gathering clouds. This scene is north of Wilson Lake in central Kansas.
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An elk is silhouetted against a rising sun at the Maxwell Wildlife Refuge near Canton, in central Kansas. The 2,254-acre refuge, managed by the state, is home to both elk and bison.
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Bison, headed in opposite directions, pass each other while mingling among the herd at the Maxwell Wildlife Refuge near McPherson, Kan.
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A fallen tree, well-washed with water and bleached by sunlight, bides its time on the shore of Kanopolis Reservoir in central Kansas.
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Wet January snow blankets an evergreen tree at Lakewod Park in Salina.
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A sandstone outcropping keeps watch over Kanopolis Reservoir in Ellsworth County.
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A truck hauls donut shop supplies south, toward lower New York City, while cranes lift building materials up to a skyscraper under construction. This scene is on Ninth Avenue, a construction hot spot in Manhattan.
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Sandstone, rich in fossils, has been pushed to the shore of Kanopolis Reservoir in Ellsworth County.
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Two trees, one large but leafless and the other holding its leaves in late fall, share a bluff overlooking Kanopolis Reservoir in central Kansas.
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Strong, clean verticle lines and a gleaming metal skin distinguish a grain elevator at the edge of downtown Dwight, in northern Morris County.
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A Twisted Barrel Cactus, with blooms of brilliant yellow, is visited by a bee at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. The cactus is a native of western Mexico.
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Saguaro cacti reach for the sky at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. These are relatively young saguaros, as they have no arms. A saguaro's arms usually begin to grow only after it is about 15 feet tall and around 75 years old.
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An abandoned Kansas farmstead, its house deteriorating and its windmill missing its wheel, has devolved into little more than a storage spot for round hay bales that will be fed to cattle. Adding to the stark scene north of Florence in Marion County is the single farmyard tree, leafless now for winter.
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At the end of the day, the shelves earlier laden with breads, pies, cakes, cinnamon rolls, cookies and other tasty products are nearly bare at the Flint Hills Market Bakery in downtown Florence. The "attendant," whose tray is also empty, is part of the plethora of antiques and collectibles that fill the large storefront. The bakery operation, which also creates breads and desserts for area restaurants, is at the back.
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Fluffy clouds are reflected in the water of a small stream that delivers runoff to Kanopolis Reservoir east of Ellsworth. The lake level is up because of a abundant fall rains, and a rather unusual early fall snowstorm has added to the moisture tally.
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A fallen cottonwood leaf, driven by wind, returns to a new place on a tree, this time embedded in snow that hugs the bark. This fall scene is at Kanopolis Reservoir west of Salina.
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Leaves, caught by bare twigs, provide splashes of color in a snow-covered field at Kanopolis Reservoir in Ellsworth County.
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Heavy, wet snow covers the trees that line the banks of the Smoky Hill River. A newly built hiking trail follows the river at the Marty Bender Nature Area. The nature area is on Land Institute property just southeast of Salina.
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A tree, not quite finished shedding its leaves in preparation for winter, stands out in a snow-covered scene enveloping a pond at the Marty Bender Nature Area of The Land Institute.
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Snow blankets the woods at the Marty Bender Nature Area southeast of Salina. The early-November snow measured about 3 inches. The nature area is part of The Land Institute and includes a 3-mile trail through woods, prairie and along the Smoky Hill River.
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A field of tall sorghum is cut for cattle feed in northeast Ellis County. The damp sorghum is cut at ground level and chopped before being shot into a trailing truck, one of four working in this field. The harvested sorghum is hauled seven miles to a giant pile, where it is compacted and allowed to ferment for about a month before it is ready to be fed to cattle.
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Aluminum flag poles, wearing the colors of the prairie, are mounted at a sharp angle to serve as sundials in an art project completed by artist Owen Brown at The Land Institute. Brown, addressing a crowd at the opening of the exhibit, is from Minneapolis, Minn. As an artist-in-residence for two weeks at The Land, he created three sets of the sundials to mark the passage of time. The distance between the first two sets, 1,190 feet, represents the distance traveled through the earth's rotation in just one second. Also on view are sculptures including items such as sea shells, suggestiong geologic time as this area once was covered by seas. The permanent exhibit, called Units of Measure, is erected at The Land's Marty Bender Nature Area, which includes a recently built hiking trail. Brown's hope is that the exhibit is seen as contemplative, stirring thoughts of time, beauty and nature.
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Artist Owen Brown leads a group of visitors on a tour of his art installation called Units of Measurement. The project at The Land Institute's Marty Bender Nature Area, depicts the meaning of time through the use of three sets of sundials and sculptures. Brown resides at Minneapolis, Minn., and spent two weeks as artist-in-residence at The Land this fall to create the exhibit.
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Only splashes of sunlight are left as the sun slips to the horizon, leaving increasing shadows on the landscape. This scene in in the northeastern corner of Ellis County.
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No. 4214, part of a small herd of cattle grazing in a pasture in northeast Ellis County, scrutinizes a visitor. Its rich red hide is highlighted by strong backlighting.
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Snow nestles into a fallen limb along a nature trail buiilt at the Marty Bender Nature Area of The Land Institute, Salina The trail of more than 3 miles was built this year by volunteers. It leads hikers through wooded areas along the Smoky Hill River to upland grasses and canyons.
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Early-October snow clings to a wild sunflower pod at the Marty Bender Nature Area, which borders the Smoky Hill River at The Land Institute southeast of Salina.
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Large round bales of hay dot a cut field in southern Lincoln County. On the horizon are wind turbines, generating electricity.
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Working in the last light of day, a Lincoln County farmer chisels his field in preparation for planting.
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A hay rake, stored in a Lincoln County field east of Lake Wilson, awaits work.
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A great blue heron takes flight from a natural waterway that has cut itself into a Flint Hills pasture in Greenwood County.
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Left untended, a rock fence in Chase County is morphing into piles of stone. Before barbed wire became ubiquitous in the late 1800s, limestone was a popular material in the Flint Hills for building everything from homes and barns to fences.
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Cattle graze in a pasture studded with bright yellow wild sunflowes, which go uneaten. The pasture is east of Lake Wilson in Lincoln County.
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Rolling hills of tallgrass prairie, lush from recent rains, are bathed in the warm light of a setting sun. This scene is near Texaco Hill in the far southeast corner of Chase County.
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Water cascades over a rock cliff at the Geary County State Lake, south of Junction City. The flow over the 35-foot waterfall, just below the lake dam, varies greatly. Heavy rains, typically in the spring, can produce vast quantities of fast-moving water, but in a dry summer no water at all might kiss the rocks. This year, August rains have kept the falls flowing, though the volume is middling.
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The Tomb of the Resurrection is an interpretation of the tomb where Jesus was laid, made of sandstone rocks at the Holy City of the Wichitas in southwest Oklahoma. The project, in the Wichita Mountains, was the brainchild of the Rev. Anthony Mark Wallock, who started an Easter pageant in 1926 to tell the story of Jesus. In the 1930s the federal Works Progress Administration built a set for his story, including this tomb, a chapel and several other buildings on the 66-acre site. The Holy City, Wallock's vision of the Holy Land, today is open to visitors, many of whom no doubt are drawn to the neighborhood by the adjacent national Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. And the pageant? Still going, and always on Easter Sunday.
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Giant granite boulders, known in a geological timetable to slide, line the flanks of Mount Scott in the Wichita Mountains of southwest Oklahoma. An ancient geological unheaval created the mountains, which rise abruptly and surprisingly from the prairie floor. The peaks are high by Oklahoma standards. Mount Scott is 2,464 feet above sea level, and its summit offers a commanding view of the federal Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. The 59,000-acre refuge, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, features mixed-grass prairie and lakes. It is home to bison, elk, turkeys, prairie dogs, river otters and burrowing owls.
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A bison calf samples its mother's milk at the Maxwell Wildlife Refuge near McPherson. The refuge, managed by the state, includes a herd of about 200 bison. The yearly calving season produces an excess of animals that are sold in the fall, with the proceeds paying most of the operational costs of the refuge. Female bison produce a rich milk but their udders, compared with cattle, are quite small, an evolutionary development that helps them run.
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The Lower Fox Creek School sits amidst tall grass and behind a rock wall at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Chase County. The one-room school was built in 1882 and was in use until its closing in 1930. As part of the preserve it is furnished and open to visitors.
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Niobrara chalk beds with sculpted bluffs and ravines interrupt the shortgrass prairie of the Smoky Valley Ranch in Logan County. The ranch of more than 17,000 acres is owned by The Nature Conservancy. It is a working cattle ranch and research site, but also contains a hiking trail with public access. For more photographs of the ranch, see the Portfolio on the main page.
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Cattle needing a new home pass through the auction ring at Mankato Livestock, giving potential buyers a chance to evaluate them and consider their bids. The sale barn at the north edge of Mankato, in use since 1929, is soon to be replaced by a new auction arena. After the weekly sale on June 1, the barn will be razed to make way for the new structure that is expected to be in operation by late summer.
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Underneath the 16-foot-high tin ceiling at Possibilities, members of the Mankato High School class of 1968, in town to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their graduation, enjoy coffee and muffins. Possibilities is a home decor and gift shop launched by Jewell County Justified, a local organization determined to spark economic activity and stem the shrinkage in Jewell County's population and business community. With the help of volunteers, the group renovated and revived the former Dime Store, a long-vacant downtown Mankato landmark that marketed candy, toys and household items.
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Gubernatorial candidate Josh Svaty listens as his pick for lieutenant governor, Katrina Lewison of Manhattan, addresses a crowd at a rally at Free State Brewery in Lawrence. Svaty, an Ellsworth farmer making a bid for the Democratic nomination, announced his running mate during a cross-state whirlwind tour May 16-17.
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A spring day breaks over the Cimarron National Grassland near Elkhart. The national grassland is a product of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Prodded by plentiful rain and high grain prices in the 1920s, much of the usually parched southwest Kansas land in the valley of the Cimarron River was tilled. But when drought came in the following decade, the thin, sandy soil was lifted by wind, creating clouds of dirt as the bare fields eroded. To clear the air and stop the erosion, Congress in 1932 passed laws allowing the government to purchase vulnerable land and return it to native grasses, which have extensive root systems that hold soil in place. Thousands of acres in the Great Plains were rescued by the program. The Cimarron National Grassland, managed by the U.S. Forest Service, includes 108,175 acres in Morton and Stevens counties
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The wheat has been harvested and the thin, sandy soil, now mostly bare, is free to blow. Dunes form in the roadside ditches, filling them. Fields in far southwest Kansas once were covered with shortgrass prairie, with root systems that held soil in check. This field is in Seward County, north of Liberal.
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Passing clouds put much of the terrain in shadow but also allow brilliant sunlight to strike this red butte, making it even more prominent in the rugged landscape of extreme northeastern New Mexico.
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Chimney Rock is a prominent feature of Ghost Ranch, a 22,000 New Mexico education and retreat center owned by the Presbyterian Church. The high-desert ranch, beloved by painter Georgia O'Keefe, is northwest of Santa Fe near Abiquiu.
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Majestic spires towering some 60 feet rise above the Rio Chama River valley near Abiquiu, New Mexico. The bizarre landscape is known as Plaza Blanca, Spanish for The White Place. Its beauty has long attracted artists, including painter Georgia O'Keefe, who lived nearby.
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Air pockets in rocks created from compacted volcanic ash, called tuff, left countless cavities in the towering cliffs of Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos, New Mexico. Those cavities, many of them small but easily enlarged with hand tools, are believed to have provided housing for ancient populations as many as 11,000 years ago.
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A late-afternoon sun bathes a Flint Hills pasture that is just turning green following a prescribed burn. This scene is in southern Chase County near Texaco Hill.
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A Studebaker President in pristine condition provides a sharp contrast to the less-well-kept downtown of Hardy, Neb., just across the Kansas border north of Lovewell Reservoir. Its owner drove the 1950s-era car to town to join his afternoon coffee group at the Hardy cafe. The cafe was closed! But not to worry. Group members have keys. They let themselves in, serve themselves beverages and discuss the events of the day at a large table.They put their payment on the counter and lock the door behind them when they leave. That's the essence of how small-town life once was in the Studebaker's day — and still is in increasingly rare instances.
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In case you're wondering, heaven can be found in Madrid, a town on the Turquoise Trail in New Mexico. The historic trail, otherwise known as Highway 14, links Albuquerque and Santa Fe. The trail has been supplanted by Interstate Highway 25, but that doesn't mean all the traffic has left. Quite the contrary. The trail, listed as a National Scenic Byway, attracts tourists, adventurers and free spirits. Madrid capitalizes fully, offering eccentric shops dealing in arts, crafts, food, clothing and even renowned chocolate creations. And bars. All heavenly.
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Vibrant expression is the rule in Madrid, New Mexico, a tiny town on the Turquoise Trail that has been recognized as a National Scenic Byway. This is a funky town, mixing individualism with expressive art, bold colors and, perhaps most importantly, commerce. It's known to attract tourists to its arts and crafts, and motorcyclists to its bars and music.
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Here, in the open range Flint Hills country of southern Chase County, intruders face off. I, the photographer, am in the domain of the open range cattle, who take an intense look at their visitor. But the cattle are standing on an official county road, Sharpes Creek Road east of Matfield Green. Open range is common in many parts of the Flint Hills, where ranches and pastures are big and county roads are lightly traveled. This standoff was brief. The cattle stepped aside; the photographer moved on.
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A white limestone boulder provides a stark contrast to the burned grasses of a Flint Hills pasture in northern Greenwood County. Fire sparks new growth in the grasses that cattle find particularly tasty. Ranchers have widely adopted the use of fire as a management tool because the new grasses increase the seasonal weight gain of their cattle. That translates to greater revenue when the cattle are sold in the fall.
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In early spring, a center-pivot irrigation system stands ready to water a yet-to-be-planted summer corn crop in central Nebraska, near Blue Hill. The irrigation system will draw water from the Ogallala aquifer, a vast underground water source that extends across 174,000 acreas in eight states of the High Plains. Nebraska is at the heart of this groundwater richness. Here, the water is deepest and most expansive, but the aquifer overall is being depleted by more than 200,000 wells, most of them drawing water for crops.
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A male Greater Prairie Chicken dances in an attempt to impress hens at a communal breeding ground known as a lek. On this day, the lek near Cheyenne Bottoms in central Kansas attracted more than a dozen males and half as many hens, but no mating occurred.
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Challenging a competitor, a male Greater Prairie Chicken seeks to show dominance that might help him convince a hen that he is the best breeding partner candidate. Such communal breeding ground displays are part of a spring ritual for the ground-nesting prairie chickens. This confrontation unfolded at a lek near Cheyenne Bottoms in central Kansas.
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This remote cabin, on the banks of West Beaver Creek in Smith County, is where the Kansas state song was born. The song is based on a poem written by Dr. Brewster M. Higley, who homesteaded here in 1871. He provided the poem to a friend, Dan Kelly, who set it to music now famously known as "Home On the Range." Brewster's cabin, which he built in 1872, has survived to earn a listing on the National Historic Register. It and the surrounding 240 acres today are owned by a local nonprofit foundation, which led a cabin restoration effort in 2013. The dirt-floor cabin and grounds, which include hiking trails along the heavily wooded creek, are open to the public year-round.
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At the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in northern Oklahoma, bison roam freely across more than 23,000 fence-free acres of tallgrass prairie, much as they did before white settlers encroached. The preserve, owned and operated by The Nature Conservancy, is home to about 2,700 bison. A network of gravel roads allows the public the opportunity for close encounters not only with the bison but also with the natural tallgrass prairie ecosystem. Also at the preserve, the conservancy devotes some 11,000 acres to the development of progressive range management techniques for domestic livestock.
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A pair of former highway service buildings at Brookville present an aging face to what once was busy U.S. Highway 40, itself supplanted by Interstate Highway 70 a few miles north. Locals say the white building was a longtime gas station and its neighbor is believed to have once housed a cafe. Both buildings have long been retired from service. Completing the scene is a car from the era's heyday, parked there for storage. It's a 1953 Chevrolet Deluxe.
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A road of white chalk follows the rolling hills southeast of Lovewell Reservoir in Jewell County.
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Another sandhill crane drops in to join the scavengers looking for leftover cron in a field south of the Platte River near Kearney, Neb. The river is a staging area for the birds, which are migrating north for the summer. They spend about a month on the Platte to add about 20 percent to their body weight. That's the fuel that will take them to Alaska and Canada.
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The setting sun highlights the distinguishing characteristic of a whitetail deer as it visits the Platte River in south-central Nebraska, near Kearney. The river is known as a temporary staging area for some half a million sandhill cranes each spring, but the deer — and lots of them — are here year-round. When alarmed, the deer use their white tail as a flag to alert other deer to possible danger.
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With visitors encroaching at dawn, an elk scampers away at the Maxwell Wildlife Refuge near McPherson, Kan. The refuge provides sanctuary for both elk and bison for the enjoyment of the public, but the elk are particularly skittish about such attention. In the summer especially, they are difficult to find.
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A bison lumbers to a hilltop amidst winter grass on the prairie of the Maxwell Wildlife Refuge northeast of McPherson, Kansas. The refuge supports populations of elk as well as bison.
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In late summer, fields of sunflowers, with their bright yellow faces, have long drawn the attention of artists, Vincent Van Gogh famously among them. But when the weather turns cold, the sunflowers lose their allure as the leaves fall and the heads bow and blacken, creating starkness that's a bit eerie. This small field in northeastern Ellsworth County was left unharvested, perhaps as a treat for wildlife.
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Bison, their coats thick and luxuriant because of the cold winter, roam the prairie at the Maxwell Wildlife Refuge north of Canton. The state-owned refuge of 2,800 acres maintains a 200-head bison herd, as well as elk.
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A face of sandstone, showing the effects of centuries of erosion, juts from a hillside in a pasture near Kanopolis Reservoir in Ellsworth County.
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A rock of Dakota sandstone, some 27 feet in diameter, is one of several formations in the aptly named Mushroom Rock State Park in eastern Ellsworth County. The formation, estimated at some 100 million years old, is what geologists call a concretion and was created through non-uniform erosion. The 5-acre park, just north of Kanopolis Reservoir, was given to the state more than a half-century ago. It's likely there are many more such features at the site. But they're still buried by soil.
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An outcropping of exposed sandstone rocks is illuminated by the last light of a winter day north of Kanopolis Reservoir in Ellsworth County.
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The back wall of a long outbuilding, perhaps a milk shed, is made of loose-laid stone that has endured the decades quite well. This shed is on the property of John Siegrist, who claimed a Wabaunsee County homestead near Alma in the mid-1800s. Limestone was a common building material in the settlement of the Flint Hills as it is abundant there and trees are not.
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The mysteries of a mask are amplified by reflections and shadows at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, where a show explaining a prominent influence in the artwork of Pablo Picasso is drawing large crowds. This mask is among many non-Western works displayed along with Picasso paintings and sculptures; together, they help viewers connect the artist with his sources of inspiration. In 1907, at the age of 25, Picasso became mesmerized with the “exotic” art he found at the Ethnographic Museum of the Trocadero in Paris. At left is a reflection of a video of that museum, which presented its treasures in a rather jumbled fashion. Picasso returned many times and also began a lifelong pursuit of collecting African, Oceanic and Meso-American artifacts. The exhibit, "Through the Eyes of Picasso," was first seen in Paris last year before coming to the Nelson, which is its only American venue. It will be on display here through April 8.
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A setting sun has left much of this east-facing hillside pasture in shadow. But tall, roadside shrubs, leafless in December, have a height advantage that allows them to linger longer in brilliant sunlight. This scene is in northeastern Ellsworth County.
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Swirling clouds and a setting sun combine to create day's-end drama at a pasture north of Kanopolis Lake in Ellsworth County. The hillside includes an outcropping of sandstone, a soft rock often found exposed in eastern Ellsworth County.
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An imposing kiln, made of limestone in the late 1800s, stands vacant on a steep hillside near Alma. The kiln was a project of entrepreneurial brothers John F. and G.W. Limerick, who built it to make Portland cement from the plentiful limestone in the area. A paste of limestone aggregate was fed into the high-temperature kiln and the resulting "clinkers" were later ground into cement powder. Tom Parish of Emporia, who has researched and photographed Flint Hills history, says John Limerick's motivation was economic development for Alma, where he served for a time as mayor. The cement plant employed more than 40 workers before it was shut down in the early 1900s.
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As seen from its belly, a limestone kiln built more than a century ago stretches to the open sky. The kiln, near Alma, was built to make Portland cement, and at one time employed more than 40 people. It was shut down in the early 1900s.
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Finding limestone plentiful and trees scarce, early homesteaders in Wabaunsee County adapted by turning to grazing for their livelihood and stone for their building material. And one of the first structures typically built was a subterranean room with a stone-arched roof, such as this one. The structures perhaps provided temporary housing, but their more enduring purpose was to serve as root cellars and storm shelters. And endure they have. Tom Parish of Emporia has researched, explored and photographed more than 200 stone cellars in a five-county area of the Flint Hills, a project begun as part of his graduate work in arts at Kansas State University. He leads occasional cave tours arranged through The Volland Store, a restored hardware store that today serves as an art gallery and meeting space in what might best be described as the Volland ghost town. Parish said many early settlers to Wabaunsee County were Volga-Germans emigrating from Russian, and they brought with them familiarity with stone construction. With limestone near the surface and exposed in hillsides of the Flint Hills, they had easy access to ample supply. Parish’s cellar inventory includes many instances where limestone homes were later built either atop the original cellar, or nearby. Other outbuildings, all of stone, are often nearby. Most are in good shape, though many are no longer used. Parish has heard some present-day residents say they’ve never explored the cellar on their property. For more about Parish’s stone-arch cellar project, check out his website at www.flinthillshelters.com
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A limestone entrance leads into a subterranean stone-arch cave built into a Wabaunsee County hillside at the John Johnson homestead. He was one of the first homesteaders, arriving in the mid-1800s. The cave is intact but the limestone home nearby, which Johnson built later, is in ruins. Such caves, common in the Flint Hills, were used for food storage and as storm shelters. And in some cases they are believed to have provided initial housing for the settlers.
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Tall grasses sway in the breeze as dawn breaks over the Konza Prairie southeast of Manhattan, Kan. The Konza, owned by The Nature Conservatory, is a Flint Hills research site managed by Kansas State University.
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With a bag of range cubes on his shoulder, farmer Josh Svaty leads his cattle to a summer pasture corral, where they will be loaded into a trailer for a 12-mile trip to winter quarters near the home place. The cattle have been taught to recognize the range cubes, which they savor; their craving helps convince them to follow orders. Some of the cattle will be sold soon, but others will be fed hay until spring turns the pastures green again. Svaty's cow-calf operation is part of his diversified farm south of Ellsworth. Besides farming, he is seeking the Democratic nomination in the 2018 Kansas governor's race. Svaty is a former state legislator and Kansas secretary of agriculture.
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Josh Svaty, Ellsworth farmer, uses a stick to point out to Bethany College students the carving of a figure found in exposed sandstone near Kanopolis Reservoir. Svaty, who searches for and catalogs petroglyphs created by American Indians in central Kansas, led the tour for Bethany instructor Kristin Van Tassel's writing class. Petroglyphs are numerous in Ellsworth County, which is rich in sandstone in the Dakota geological formation. The exposed rocks are ancient — perhaps 100 million years old — and soft, thus easily carved. But because of that softness, the rock also is easily eroded and it's believed the Indian carvings were done within the past few hundred years. The Indian carvings are bold and powerful, often depicting the human form, animals and geometric designs. (Note that the rock Svaty is explaining has more recently been carved with initials; that work is more akin to graffiti and explains why landowners and petroglyph aficionados are reluctant to disclose the locations of historic carvings.)
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Newly harvested grain sorghum, in a wide variety of colors, creates a mosaic art form as it is added to a storage pile at the Cargill Inc. grain elevator east of WaKeeney, Kan. Grain sorghum is an ancient crop, originating in Africa and India some 8,000 years ago, and as a result infinite varieties — and colors — are available. In Kansas, which is the leading sorghum producing state in the nation, darker colors predominate — red, bronze and orange among them. In the United States, sorghum is primarily fed to livestock, although it also is used in ethanol production. But in other parts of the world, sorghum is a food staple and the colors of those varieties tend to be lighter, including white, cream and tan. Sorghum, also called milo, is ideally suited for much of dryland Kansas as it offers drought tolerance and high yield, and its grain packs high energy. Each of the heads typically contains about 1,000 round seeds. When Cargill turns off the tap to this pile it will contain about 1 million bushels, or about 56 million pounds of grain. From here it will travel by rail and truck to its ultimate destinations, including the feedlots of western Kansas.
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Limestone peaks, some reaching 100 feet, rise from the shortgrass prairie in Logan County, Kansas. This 250-acre site, long known as Little Jerusalem, was purchased by The Nature Conservancy in 2016, which also owns the adjoining 17,000-acre Smoky Valley Ranch south of Oakley. Little Jerusalem is closed to the public at present but the conservancy is working to develop a plan that will both allow public access and protect the delicate landscape of soft limestone and fossilized sea shells left from what 80 million years ago was an huge inland sea.
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The geological effects of millions of years are shown in the faces of Niobrara chalk outcroppings in Logan County known as Little Jerusalem. The soft limestone was formed some 80 million years ago when Kansas was part of an inland sea that stretched from what now is the Gulf of Mexico north to Alaska. At Little Jerusalem the ground is covered by what looks to be soft rock but actually is fossilized seashells, mostly clams and oysters. The site is closed to the public today but the owner, The Nature Conservancy, is working on a plan to open it to visitors. A key component of that plan is how to protect the fragile site. One challenge: conventional hiking trails would surely contribute to erosion. The conservancy also owns the adjacent Smoky Valley Ranch, which includes hiking trails that are open to the public.
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Jagged peaks of Niobrara chalk, a soft limestone, create a dramatic landscape known as Little Jerusalem in the Smoky Hill River valley south of Oakley, Kansas. The rock formations, covering more than 250 acres, is the largest chalk pyramid site in Kansas, dwarfing both Monument Rocks and Castle Rock, which are nearby. Little Jerusalem was part of the privately owned ranch of the Jim McGuire family for five generations before it was purchased in 2016 by The Nature Conservancy, which is developing a plan to allow public access.
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An old grain elevator sitting alongside railroad tracks at Pendennis is open — though not open for business. Pendennis, in Lane County on Kansas 4 Highway, today has the credentials of a ghost town. But once it had promise, sporting a railroad depot, post office and school in addition to the grain elevator. The post office, opened in 1894, was shut down more than half a century ago. The community merited no mention in the 2010 U.S. Census, and its existence has been erased from the official state highway map.
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Exposed stone and lush grass are hallmarks of the Kansas Flint Hills. This scene is along Madison Road southeast of Matfield Green.
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A trio of deer, at home in the tallgrass prairie of the Flint Hills, checks out a photographer in northeastern Butler County. Their curiosity was fleeting, however, and they quickly fled.
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Horses today are making themselves at home in the lower level of a home long ago abandoned by people. The structure is tucked into a hillside on Moyer Ranch Road in northern Geary County.
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Candidate Josh Svaty makes his pitch for the governor's race to a long table of diners he found waiting for him at the colorful Las Canteras Mexican Restaurant in downtown Smith Center. Svaty, a Democrat and farmer from Ellsworth, was in the northern Kansas community as part of a mission to visit all 105 Kansas counties as he opens his 2018 gubernatorial campaign.
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Yucca plants, bearing many stiff spines with sharp points, are plentiful in the shortgrass prairie of the Arikaree Breaks of northern Cheyenne County, Kan. The plants, also known as soap weed, have a horizontal root system that can extend some 30 feet.
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Wild sunflowers line a fence line in the Arikaree Breaks of northwest Cheyenne County. The rugged Breaks were created some 9,000 years ago when wind sculpted the sand, silt and clay particles called loess. Over time, erosion has created ravines and gullies deep enough to deter road construction. A rancher in this area northwest of St. Francis said the best way to explore the inner mysteries of the Breaks is by horse.
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At one time, Horse Thief Cave in northern Cheyenne County, Kan., was a large cave with two chambers. It got its name from its use, but local historians say it was last used by thieves in 1878. The back chamber has fallen in, and only the entrance survives today. Nonetheless, it is a busy tourist attraction. A guest book, housed in a mailbox along Road 17, shows a steady stream of visitors from all corners of the United States who have braved the soft roads to take a look.
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Karen Krien, editor and publisher of the Saint Francis Herald, takes a photo of gubernatorial candidate Josh Svaty visiting with Heidi Plumb, the owner of the Fresh Seven Coffee shop in downtown St. Francis. Svaty, who is at about the half-way point of a campaign swing that will take him to all 105 Kansas counties by October, declared that the sandwich and coffee found here is the best he’s found on the campaign trail. Little wonder. This is a serious shop. Plumb roasts her own coffee beans, and sandwiches at the Fresh Seven are made to order with locally grown, organic vegetables. Vegetarian fare is offered. Words such as “sustainability” flow from her lips. Plumb came to Cheyenne County, in the far northwest corner of Kansas with a population of about 2,600, from Phoenix, following her husband who is a native of this area. She took charge of a downtown storefront in sad shape and applied a bit of renovation to turn it into a coffee bar that is colorful, homey, laid back and a bit funky. On this day her mother, from Phoenix, was on a ladder adding yet more bright paint to the interior brick walls. Plumb’s staff includes a sandwich maker who migrated here from Lawrence and also works part-time on a sheep ranch. Svaty, a farmer and Democrat from Ellsworth seeking the governor’s office in next year’s election, found Fresh Seven a delightful place to dine and campaign. It was at about this point in the day when his long northwest campaign swing began to veer a bit off schedule.
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Blooming ironweed adds color to the tallgrass prairie along Sharps Creek Road in Chase County, south of Bazaar. Ironweed, although pretty, is a pasture weed, the most common one in Kansas. Cattle won't eat it because of its bitterness. If a pasture is overgrazed, ironweed flourishes. Behind the blooms is a small lake created by a dam on Sharpes Creek.
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Visible for miles, Teter Rock crowns a high hill in the Flint Hills of Greenwood County. The hilltop once included a small town, which developed in the 1920s with the nearby discovery of oil. Nearly all evidence of the town now is gone now. But the 16-foot-tall limestone monument is a bit of a tourist attraction, albeit one reached only via a long, rough lane through the pasture. The monument was built in 1954 by the Greenwood County Historial Society to recognize a former rock landmark that served as a prairie guidepost in the late 1870s.
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Cowboys Adrian Vogel, left, and Tegan Green, 12, attempt to lasso a trespassing steer in a Flint Hills pasture in northeast Butler County. The steer, apparently wild-eyed because of a recent journey in a cattle trailer, found itself in this situation after jumping fences two pastures east of here. It was an unwelcome visitor. Vogel said an ornery steer might taint a calm herd with bad habits, so he was anxious to get this one back to its owner. The steer was roped but it wouldn’t be led anywhere, let alone home. Instead, it opted to lie down in the pasture and, when provoked, charge Vogel and his horse, or Tegan and his horse. Vogel had the last word, though. He ended the frustration by tying the steer’s legs, preventing it from getting up, and calling the owner, advising him that he best bring a trailer. The adventure provided Tegan with valuable experience in working cattle with horses. He is from Laverne, Okla., and spending his summer with Kansas relatives working on a Flint Hills cattle ranch.
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Cowboy Adrian Vogel attempts to hold a roped steer as it lunges in the direction of Tegan Green, 12, and his horse. The prairie drama ensued after the steer jumped fences to escape its owner's herd to the east. The unruly steer wouldn't be led so Vogel tied its legs and advised its owner to bring a trailer and haul it home.
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Recent rain has left water in a waterway of the Flint Hills prairie east of Matfield Green, in Chase County. The exposed rock in the foreground helps explain why rain doesn't percolate well in the Flint Hills; rather, it runs, often at astonishing speed.
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A rock wall, fortified by a barbed wire fence, surrounds a Flint Hills pasture on Drovers Trail Road in Wabaunsee County, Kan.
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Only the rock wall skeleton of this outbuilding remains standing in a Flint Hills pasture in the northwest corner of Wabaunsee County. The scene is along Deep Creek Road.
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A herd of wild horses run in the Flint Hills of northeastern Butler County. More than 7,000 such horses have been placed in five Flint Hills pastures, totaling some 60,000 acres, by the federal Bureau of Land Management, which takes bids from ranchers to lease native prairie on a per-head basis. The ranchers provide the tallgrass pasture and, in the winter, supplemental feed.
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Wild horses have room to run in the tallgrass prairie of the Flint Hills east of Cassoday, Kan. Five pastures totaling some 60,000 acres have been leased to the federal Bureau of Land Management to provide a native prairie home for the horses and, in turn, preserve a well-known symbol of the Old West.
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This one-room, stone schoolhouse in Wabaunsee County has been fully restored and the grounds are well-maintained, but class hasn't been in session for years. The District 26 school was known as the Volland School and is west of that once-vibrant community that now, oddly enough, is most well known for its art gallery in a restored hardware building. The Volland School, on a hilltop along Old K10 Road, is privately owned and maintained.
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Veryl Switzer, nationally acclaimed sports star in the 1950s who returned to his hometown of Nicodemus to farm, chats with Josh Svaty, a Kansas gubernatorial candidate, at the 2017 Nicodemus Homecoming Celebration. Switzer, a graduate of nearby Bogue High School, won national attention as a football standout in the early 1950s at Kansas State University. He led the nation in punt returns his senior year and afterward was the fourth overall pick in the National Football League draft, joining the Green Bay Packers. His football career was interrupted by Air Force service and, upon his return he played Canadian football before joining the staff at the Chicago Board of Education. But he returned to Kansas and maintained his ties to his Nicodemus roots and farm even while serving in administrative roles at K-State. He is a descendent of one of the original settlers of Nicodemus, which was founded and promoted in 1877 as The “Largest Colored Colony in America.” In 1996 Congress designated Nicodemus as a National Historic Site, and today the National Park Service maintains a visitors center and five historic buildings, including the Township Hall where the Homecoming festivities were headquartered. Switzer said younger family members tend his farm today and he’s mostly retired.
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A mirror behind a large glass display case, filled with flags, streamers, historical photographs and other memorabilia, reflects the work of Josh Svaty in Osborne, Kan. Svaty, campaigning for governor, was at the drink station of a fundraising dinner when his attention was engaged by potential voters from Smith Center. He obliged, of course. Svaty was in Osborne to check out the Osborne County Fair and one of its signature events, the dinner that is the primary fundraiser of the Osborne Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary. It was staged in the downtown Veterans Building, and began just after the fair parade that filed past the front door. The building is home to the local chapters of both the VFW and the American Legion. Its décor is rich in flags and for the dinner the colors red, white and blue were predominate. The fare? Fried chicken, potato salad, beans, bread and, for dessert, home-baked pies in the widest assortment imaginable. And the price? Just ten bucks.
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Flowers bloom along Tulley Hill Road in the Flint Hills of northwestern Geary County, Kan.
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Early-morning sunshine bathes a valley of Horsethief Canyon in warm light. The canyon, at the northeast end of Kanopolis Reservoir in central Kansas, is known for its reddish sandstone that is part of the rugged terrain.
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A bumblebee feeds on the nectar of a silphium flower in a plant breeding plot at The Land Institute in Salina, Kan. Scientists at the institute are domesticating silphium, which has high drought tolerance, as a perennial oilseed crop.
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Hanging wire sculptures created by San Francisco artist Ruth Asawa are displayed at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Asawa was inspired to focus her work on such sculptures by wire baskets she saw being created in Mexico in the 1940s. She used iron, copper and brass wire to create the pieces.
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The architecture of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, recently renovated, is itself an artistic work. The atrium offers framed views of multiple floors.
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Visitors at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art sit before a Mark Rothko oil painting, titled "No. 14, 1960." Rothko, who died in 1970, painted in New York City and was a pioneer in what became known as Colorfield Painting.
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Clouds have rolled in below the peak of Mount Tamalpais, obscuring the view below of the San Francisco skyline, the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay. Mount Tamalpais has a peak of 2,571 feet and is the focal point of Mount Tamalpais State Park above the town of Mill Valley in northern California. The 6,300-acre park includes more than 60 miles of hiking trails that course the grassland hills and deep ravines. But the park also draws many cyclists who accept the challenge of the steep, twisty paved roads to the summit.
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Harvested wheat is moved from the combine bin to a semi-trailer truck for transport to a grain elevator at Ellsworth, Kan. This field, farmed by Josh Svaty, is south of Ellsworth.
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Brad Windholz guides a combine through small patches of uncut wheat on his son Logan's farm in Ellsworth County. The patches were left standing when the combine turned corners in the field.
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Brad Windholz scoops a bit of spilled wheat from roadway to truck. The grain, harvested on his son Logan's farm in Ellsworth County, was spilled during the transfer from grain cart to truck.
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Carrying watering cans and a bucket of mulch, Jason Alfonso and Mark Neubrand, members of the Smoky Hills Audubon Society, walk the trails of the organization's wildlife refuge to care for newly planted milkweed. The milkweed was donated to the Salina-based chapter by Monarch Watch, a nonprofit organization based at the University of Kansas that is dedicated to improving habitat for the Monarch bufferfly.
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As the day draws to a close, clouds roll in over Cheyenne Bottoms, a central Kansas wetlands near Great Bend.
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A 7-year-old boy, sporting a determined look, sprints to the finish line of a children's race at the Smoky Hill River Festival in Salina, Kan. Besides races for children as young as 1 year old, the Festival Fitness Five event included 5-mile and 2-mile runs for runners of dedication, or not. The races, which drew more than 600 participants, are a traditional part of the four-day festival in Oakdale Park that celebrates the arts.
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Being plenty tall enough, a giraffe opts to embellish a sign, high over his barn door, that announces the giraffe exhibit at the Rolling Hills Zoo west of Salina, Kan. The zoo, founded by the late Charlie Walker and opened in 1999, is operated by a private, nonprofit foundation and dedicated to the conservation of exotic and endangered animals.
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Although they have a large tallgrass prairie to roam, these cattle are bunched tightly in a low and muddy portion of their pasture, likely seeking relief from a persistent nemesis — heel flies. Adult female heel flies glue their eggs on the hair of host animals, and their preference is the hind legs of cattle. When the larvae emerge a few days later they burrow to the base of the hair, penetrate the skin of their host, open a breathing hole in the skin, and settle in for nearly a year as a parasite. Come next spring, they’ll burrow back to the skin, and plop to the ground where they pupate as an adult fly.
This process is a serious irritant for cattle. They bunch together to seek refuge from the insects and sometimes find water to stand in to protect their legs. Their distress subsequently can be reflected in significant economic loss to ranchers. Those losses include reduced weight gain, hide damage and damage to tissue (meat) that leads to lower prices at the packing plant. Insecticides can provide relief to both the animals and ranchers.
This herd, west of Alma in Wabaunsee County, includes many calves just a few days old. But they aren’t part of the bunching. They’ve drifted to the periphery to keep from being trampled.
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A ring-billed gull patrols the waters of the Cheyenne Bottoms wetlands northeast of Great Bend, Kan.The marsh, nearly 20,000 acres and owned by the state, attracts a wide variety of migratory and resident birds. Ring-billed gulls are abundant, especially in the spring and fall.
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The sun sets behind the now-vacant Bichet School, built in 1896 in Marion County to serve the French-speaking families who settled near Florence. The still-solid, one-room school, closed for more than 60 years, could today be a museum had not plans been thwarted by vandals and thieves. Oscar Johnson, a local stonemason of some renown, built Bichet School, serving District 34, in 1896. The symmetrical structure with 18-inch-thick limestone walls includes a single classroom of some 1,000 square feet and is about 30 feet tall, counting the wooden bell tower. Amenities include twin outhouses, also made of stone and located on the opposite corners of the western boundary. And just in case, Johnson crafted a cave storm shelter — stone, again — featuring an arched ceiling. The first teacher (paid $40 a month) taught her lessons in English but her students all were fluent in French. Classes continued for 50 years, until April 19, 1946. The final bell rang for just two students that day – a pair of brothers, one anchoring the third grade class and the other the sixth. Since then, the building sometimes was used for community functions and for a while even served as a headquarters for local motorcycle races. Privately owned, it hasn’t been used in some time but it has earned its place on the National Register of Historic Places.
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Blooming spiderwort plants, glistening from overnight rain, brighten Horsethief Canyon at the north end of Kanopolis Reservoir in Ellsworth County. The plants are common in the prairie, and their flowers are at their best in the morning. The spiderwort once was thought to be a treatment for spider bites.
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The sun sinks over the placid waters of a cove at the upper end of Kanopolis Reservoir west of Salina.
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A tree sparkles as it is hit by late-evening sun that otherwise is casting deep shadows in the deep recesses of the Horsethief Canyon area of Kanopolis Reservoir in Ellsworth County. The lake is the oldest state recreation area and includes more than 27 miles of hiking trails.
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This gracefully designed limestone bridge over the Cottonwood River, with a span of about 175 feet, is the largest stone arch bridge in Kansas. Built in 1886 at a cost of about $12,000, it is also one of the oldest. The Clements Stone Arch Bridge carried traffic for more than a century before a new bridge was built on Chase County’s rerouted G Road, just to the east. Local folks say it wasn’t concern over the strength and integrity of the stone arch bridge that prompted its replacement; rather, the historic bridge, at just 16 feet wide, was deemed too narrow for modern vehicles and farm equipment.
The new bridge, utilitarian but pedestrian-looking, has left the stone arch bridge to serve only pedestrians. The road to the historic bridge is but a lane, and vehicles are barred from the span by, appropriately, huge blocks of limestone. Upon arriving, visitors seem to walk the bridge deck first, but the more interesting view is from 40 feet below, on the banks of the Cottonwood, where the stonework and craftsmanship applied by the builder, L.P. Santy & Co., of Clements, can be admired. Among the builder’s touches was the insertion of a large block, carved in relieve, that identifies the Santy Company, its owners, the commissioners and the date of construction.
The bridge is just south of Clements, less than a mile from busy U.S. 50 Highway. A highway sign calls attention to the bridge, which since 1976 has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Local fundraising efforts have helped secure the structure and prepare it for visitors, and the hope is that more can be done to restore and develop the site as a local tourist attraction.
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A formerly imposing two-story limestone building has become a ruins in Morris County, just south of Diamond Springs and just up the hill from Diamond Creek.
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A sculpture titled "Amber Eye" keeps watch on downtown Salina as part of the annual SculptureTour Salina, which opened in early May. The show includes 22 pieces that will be on display for nearly a year. Participants of the walking tour will vote on a "People's Choice" winner at year's end, and that piece will be purchased for permanent public display by the City of Salina. "Amber Eye," priced at $12,000, was created by Glenn Zweygardt, who works at Alfred Station, NY. A former university art professor in New York, he was born in 1943 in far northwest Kansas, at St. Francis, and earned a bachelor's degree in art at Wichita State University and a master's degree at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore.
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Dressed for the part in clothes of his own making, Jimmie Lewis tells of the life of a Northeast woodsman in the early 1700s during the Discover Salina Naturally event in Lakewood Park. Lewis is part of the Salina-based Prairie Longrifles group that, through study and re-enactment, keeps alive the frontier lifestyle of woodsman, sometimes referred to as mountain men. The club had an exhibit at Discover Salina Naturally, which was focused on nature, the environment and natural lifestyle choices. Lewis, 85, Salina, long has been studying history, the resourcefulness of mountain men, the development of the Plains, and historic Indian culture that made wise use of natural resources. He is a well-known storyteller and in 2014 was honored with the Kansas Museum Association's Distinguished Service Award for his work in teaching and demonstrating history as a volunteer for the Smoky Hill Museum, Salina.
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“Harley,” a metal sculpture of considerable size that resembles a rhinoceros, keeps a careful watch on downtown Salina traffic. The artwork is one of 22 street sculptures installed on Santa Fe Avenue as part of the SculptureTour Salina public art walk and competition. The pieces will be displayed for nearly a year, and voting by the public will name a People’s Choice award winner that will be purchased by the City of Salina. “Harley’s” creator, Dale Lewis of Hastings, Minn., won that award last year with a metal sculpture of an elephant named “Slim.” That piece has moved to permanent display; "Slim" looks out over the chain link fence of the former city swimming pool in Kenwood Park. Also on permanent display throughout the city are five previous People’s Choice winners and more than a dozen sculptures purchased for public display by donors. “Harley,” made of scrap metal that includes tailpipes and mufflers from Harley-Davidson motorcycles, carries a price tag: $18,000.
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Cattle look for fresh spring growth in the tallgrass prairie of the Flint Hills west of Matfield Green.
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Even with cracks in the walls, mud in the basement and deteriorating timbers, a 142-year-old gristmill at Cedar Point, out of service for years, stands as a monument to ingenuity, frontier architecture and pluck. Little wonder it’s the target of a restoration project, estimated to cost some $3 million.
The Drinkwater and Shriver Mill was built on the south bank of the Cottonwood River at Cedar Point, beginning in 1871. That was just before the railroad arrived so the builders, O.H. Drinkwater and P.P. Schriver, needed to draw on creativity to get building materials and equipment to the remote Chase County site. When the mill was finished in 1875, the river’s current provided the power to drive the pulleys and belts that carried wheat harvested in the surrounding river bottomland to the top of the building, where the seed was separated, diverted to wooden chutes and allowed to flow, by gravity, back to ground level for milling, with a stone grinder, into flour. The flour was bagged and sold to the growing population in the valley.
Dan Clothier, a Kansas City property developer who has ties to central Kansas, is leading the restoration effort, driven by a love of history, architecture and the Flint Hills. He notes that the mill was one of the first built in Kansas; within a quarter of a century more than 500 mills were counted in the state. His dream is to preserve the limestone building so it can house a museum to showcase its charms and tell the story of Kansas frontier development and early-day milling.
Some work has been done. The site has been cleaned, and a 1903 wood-and-tin addition to the mill has been removed, revealing a handsome limestone façade that surprised all of the Cedar Point residents — only a couple of dozen or so at last count. That façade fronts and is a key element of the town’s remaining business district.
In the 1920s, the mill and river team could grind about 250 bushels of wheat in 12 hours. In the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s, the river went dry for a while. In the 1940s, the mill’s work was to mill feed for cattle, and after the war the mill relied on electricity instead of the river for its power. All operations ceased in the 1960s and the mill languished until Clothier began work to bring it back to life in an educational role. He formed a nonprofit organization, the Drinkwater and Schriver Mill Inc., and serves as its president. That organization has bought the property. Since then, the mill has been added to the National Register of Historic Places and a team of architectural students at Kansas State University has come up with a concept for restoration, though that work won’t begin until funds are raised.
This is a long-term project, Clothier said. But so be it. The building is stable for now and he’s long been known for optimism. Regional publications have been attracted to the story and the mill, with Cedar Point being less than a mile south of busy U.S. Highway 50, draws a steady stream of visitors. A large sign at the mill explains the project and directs people to the nonprofit organization’s web site, www.cedarpointmill.com, and to Clothier, who fields calls from his Leawood home, (816) 808-1610.
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Seeing, perhaps, greener grass, cattle wander across aptly named Open Range Road west of Matfield Green in the Kansas Flint Hills. The road passes through an "open range," meaning that the few roads that dare intrude in the vast acreage of tallgrass prairie lack the protection that fences typically provide both travelers and livestock. Or, to put it plainly, cattle have the right of way here. This is their space. Motorists know to be mindful that cattle might claim their space in the trafficway. Never mind that traffic tends to be light.
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An old Massey Ferguson tractor stands ready for spring service. The tractor was parked for the winter at the seam where a farm field meets the trees and brush flanking Coyne Branch Creek south of Clements in Chase County.
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Clouds roll in over the pond at the Harold Lear Sanctuary maintained by the Smoky Hills Audubon Society, Salina. The lake provides habitat for waterfowl and shore birds, but the local Audubon Society chapter also is developing a prairie ecosystem for ground-nesting birds at the 67-acre sanctuary near the intersection of Interstate Highways 135 and 70.
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A calf, fighting freedom and full of angst, bolts past wild mustangs as it fruitlessly seeks to solve a maze of pasture fences east of Cassoday in the Kansas Flint Hills. The tale began when the calf escaped its home pasture by following a small gully wash under the barbed wire, emerging into the ditch of Butler County Road 150. Quickly realizing that freedom is overrated, among calves, at least, Calf No. 432 studied and nudged the fence that now enforced its exile. It turned to the road and studied that, too. But apparently concluding it was no highway home, the calf returned to the fence and began walking the line, heading east, away from home and adjacent to the pasture claimed by a herd of horses. Breaking into a run, the calf added to its distance from home before stopping and examining again both the fence and the road and then turning west, at a walk, until it spotting a small opening through which it scooted —into the neighboring pasture. The calf bolted, startling and stirring the mustangs, as it headed for Mom, monitoring the crisis from the other side of the fence that separates the pastures. Now it was that fence that thwarted a reunion and the calf, anxiety at full throttle, ran alongside it for the deep south. Mom seemed torn. Should she maintain her border patrol or return to the herd? She turned toward the herd. And then turned back. The calf stopped. Mom ambled south. The dilemma continued, but not for long. A rancher quickly arrived to orchestrate the reunion.
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Dan Baffa of the Smoky Hills Audubon Society takes a close look at the ground to check the seeding of native plants at the group's wildlife sanctuary northwest of Salina. The Audubon group is removing brome grasses at the 67-acre sanctuary and seeding a mixture of native grasses and wildflowers that will attract the bugs and insects needed by birds. The goal is a small prairie environment. Brome grasses, quite invasive, create a thick matt at ground level that ground-nesting birds find undesirable. Further, brome outcompetes other plants, creating a monoculture that spoils the natural prairie ecosystem. The planting project at the Audubon sanctuary is funded, in part, by a grant from the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. The Rolling Hills Zoo is assisting by drilling the seed. On the tractor, Garrett Morris, the zoo's horticulture supervisor, pauses while Baffa checks the seeding rate.
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Although it lacks occupants, maintenance and paint, this abandoned, two-story farmhouse still commands attention, and a bit of mystique, on Kansas Highway 14 just south of Lovewell Lake. The once-grand house is believed to have been built in the 1890s, according to Alva Tyler, who remembered growing up there during the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. The house with five gables and three bedrooms sits next to a pond in a picturesque Jewell County valley quite a distance from today’s highway. Long gone are the barn, garage, hen house and outhouse. The house never knew indoor plumbing, and Tyler told a writer that, to his recollection, it was never painted. John E. Price Sr., who bought the farmhouse and land in 1988 from the Tyler family, said it was the family’s wish that the house not be painted. He’s not only complied with that request, he’s played along to nurture the eeriness of the place known locally as “Casper’s House.” At Halloween, he places ghost images in the windows.
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Refreshed by fire only a couple of weeks ago, this tallgrass prairie west of Matfield Green, Kan., experiences a flush of new growth. Fire is a natural governor of the prairie ecosystem, protecting the rolling Flint Hills from invasion of shrubs and trees. The extensive roots of the grasses, undisturbed, respond to fire by feeding new growth that cattle find particularly appealing. Studies have shown that cattle gain an extra quarter pound of weight per day when grazing on grassland that has been burned. The economics of that has made annual planned burning a ritual throughout the 82,000 acres of the Flint Hills. Much of that burning occurs in the spring. Refer to the blog of April 8 to see how this pasture looked immediately after the fire.
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Dan Baffa, right, drops the lid of bluebird house No. 7 to reveal three blue eggs, momentarily unattended, to participants of the monthly Nature Walk at the Smoky Hills Audubon Society. The Saturday walk, on Earth Day, was at the organization's 67-acre wildlife refuge just northwest of Salina. The hiking trails there are peppered with nearly three dozen bluebird houses that are monitored weekly throughout the season. Baffa, a member of the Smoky Hills Audubon board, led the walk.
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Ted Zerger, a volunteer and member of the Smoky Hills Audubon Society, tends a flower bed at the kiosk that welcomes visitors to the group's wildlife sanctuary. The 67-acre sanctuary, which includes a pond, walking trails and birding opportunities, is near the intersection of Interstate Highways 70 and 135 just northwest of Salina, Kansas.
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A male Greater Prairie Chicken dances at a communal breeding ground, called lek, in central Kansas. The prairie chicken is a ground-nesting grouse at home in both shortgrass and tallgrass prairie. Its greatest risk as a species is loss of habitat. This lek is on privately owned property near Cheyenne Bottoms. The Kansas Wetlands Education Center at Cheyenne Bottoms has arranged with the landowner to set up a viewing blind at the lek. Each spring, during the mating season, the center ushers small groups to the blind, where they can view the extraordinary prairie chicken mating ritual that begins at first light.
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A male Greater Prairie Chicken seeks to arouse the interest of hens at a lek near Cheyenne Bottoms near Great Bend, Kan. The male's repertoire includes lifting the ear-like feathers above his head, inflating the bright orange air sacks on each side of his throat, belting out hollow moans, jumping, and dancing by stamping his feet rapidly.
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Performing in hopes of finding a mate, a Greater Prairie Chicken jumps at a lek near Cheyenne Bottoms in central Kansas. The lek is a communal breeding ground where males gather to dance and sing to impress hens. As they perform, males emit a loud, hollow, eerieg moaning sound that can be heard for up to a mile.
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Male Greater Prairie Chickens face-off at dawn at a lek near Cheyenne Bottoms, northeast of Great Bend, Kan. The lek is a communal mating ground where males cluck, sing, dance and fight to win the affection of hens. The hens are choosey, for nothing short of the survival of the species is at stake. Kansas research has shown that in a given season, a dominate, handsome, showy male may account for some 90 percent of the flock breeding.
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Blackened by fire, a tallgrasss prairie west of Matfield Green, Kan., prepares for regrowth and another season of cattle grazing. Fire is a friend of the prairie ecosystem, clearing grassland of previous growth and halting what could be an invasion of woody plants. Although this ground looks well charred, the root systems of prairie grasses are extensive and robust. Within days, new green shoots will appear and thrive — and the new growth is particularly attractive to cattle that will be brought here to graze. Note that the fire, consuming the topside vegetation, has exposed the cherty gravel, or flint, that is the primary characteristic of the Flint Hills. Once, the Great Plains contained more than 170 million acres of grassland. Fire then was part of the natural cycle of the ecosystem. Lightning was a common trigger, although Indians were known to start prairie fires, too, knowing that the regrowth would attract the bison herds. Nearly all of the virgin prairie has been plowed into farmland, with less than 4 percent remaining. Most of that is in the Kansas Flint Hills. Credit the cherty gravel for that. Its abundance is what spared the Flint Hills from the plow.
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In between customers, barber Richard Stone plays his guitar and sings on a bench in front of his shop in downtown Cottonwood Falls. Stone's repertoire includes songs by Jerry Lee Lewis and other musicians he came to know while growing up in the 1950s. In the background is the Chase County Courthouse, built in 1878. It is the oldest operating courthouse in the state and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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The Cottonwood River, swollen by Chase County rains of 5 to 7 inches in recent days, spills over the dam at Cottonwood Falls, Kansas. The rains have caused widespread flooding in Chase and Lyon counties. The first dam on this site of the Cottonwood was built of logs in 1860 to power a sawmill and gristmill. That dam was replaced by this one, made of cut limestone blocks, which have since been covered with concrete.
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A jogger passes in front of the mural-decorated Fire Station No. 2 on Santa Fe Avenue in Salina. The mural depicts local fire events of historical significance, including news clippings from The Salina Journal.
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A low-water, concrete crossing is submerged in the rushing water of Diamond Creek south of Diamond Springs, Kan. The creek is swollen because of heavy rains in Morris County, and throughout central Kansas. When the creek falls, the roadway likely will still be blocked by tree limbs delivered by the floodwaters.
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A torrent of water cascades over the falls below the dam at the Chase State Fishing Lake west of Cottonwood Falls, Kan. Prather Creek is among many in central Kansas that have been swollen by more than 3 inches of rain in the past week. Here, Prather Creek falls about 40 feet in three falls. The upper fall, with the shortest drop, is not seen in this photograph. Heavy rains typically prompt many sightseers to visit the lake and hike the slippery slope to the creek to see (and hear) the impressive falls.
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Late winter sun illuminates the Gurley Salt Marsh in northern Lincoln County. The 160-acre wetland was purchased by the state in 2012 from Jim Gurley, an elderly landowner who wanted to see the site preserved and spared of development. A grant from energy company ConocoPhillips helped make the transaction possible.
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Shortly after dawn, a Sandhill Crane takes off from the Platte River to begin a day of feeding on waste corn in Nebraska farm fields. For thousands of years, the river in southern Nebraska has been a stopover point where cranes rest and refuel during their migration of more than 5,000 miles.
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A Sandhill Crane takes wing to leave the Platte River for a day of feeding on Nebraska corn. The cranes, numbering about 100,000 or so on any given day, spend about three weeks on the Platte to rest and refuel before continuing their migration.
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A Sandhill Crane finds amusement in tossing a stick plucked from the shallow waters of the Platte River south of Kearney, Neb. The river is a stopping, resting and feeding spot for some 400,000 cranes as they make their twice-yearly migration of some 5,000 to 7,000 miles.
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A pair of Sandhill Cranes fly in close proximity above the Platte River in Nebraska. The birds, with wingspans of 6 feet or more, can fly at 25-35 miles per hour. Their spring migration to breeding grounds as far north as Alaska and Eastern Siberia can cover 5,000 to 7,000 miles. For more than 10,000 years, they have stopped at the Platte to rest and refuel.
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Winter wheat, planted last fall and dormant through the cold months, begins its spring growth under a cloudy sky south of Beloit, in Mitchell County, Kansas. The crop will mature, produce seed, turn golden as it dries and be ready for harvest in June.
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Trees, destined to grow together in close quarters, adapt by adjusting their lean as they seek maximum access to sunlight. This scene is in the woodlands area of the Smoky Hills Audubon Society Sanctuary, a 67-acre wildlife refuge just nothwest of Salina.
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Doug Rudick, president of the Smoky Hills Audubon Society, attempts to tamp out fire as it is pushed out of control by wind during a burn at the society's wildlife sanctuary west of Salina. Saline County firefighters, called to bring the blaze under control, prevented damage. The burning was part of a project to replace brome grass in a meadow with a mixture of native grasses that will provide a better environment for birds.
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A fisherman tries his luck at sunset on a fishing dock at Lakewood Park, Salina. The water on this day, Monday, March 6, is reflecting a deep golden hue in the sky that was the result of atmospheric smoke from out-of-control prairie fires in the Wilson and Dorrance area some 60 miles west of Salina. The smoke nearly obscured the sun, creating an eerie scene. Dry conditions and high winds were blamed for wildfires in 21 Kansas counties this week, some of which have been burning for days.
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In retirement, Tom has sharpened his knowledge of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright and served as a volunteer tour guide, shepherding some 1,800 groups across the campus of Taliesin West near Scottsdale, Arizona. The campus, which houses the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, has been named a national historic landmark. Wright, known for what came to be known as prairie-style architecture, was designing and building structures until his death in 1959 at the age of 91. Taliesin West has planned special events for 2017 to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth.
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A stretch of Kansas Highway 181 was blocked for about a half hour to accommodate a wide load -- as wide as a house, which was being towed to a new location on a hilltop overlooking a scenic valley south of Hunter. All indications are that the move did not impede traffic, as the only vehicles sharing the two-lane road at the time were in one way or another connected with the move itself, including warning vehicles and utility crews.
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The Horsethief Canyon area of Kanopolis Reservoir west of Salina features colorful sandstone, including slabs as flat as a tabletop. This scene is from a canyon hilltop high above a small tributary stream that delivers runoff water into the reservoir.
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